Speech

This speech was given at the Club (CBT) Contest on the 20th February 2024 and at the Area (C3) Contest on the 16th of March 2024.

3-3 Engage Your Audience with Humor

This project focuses on using humor to enhance the message you deliver in your speech.

Purpose: The purpose of this project is for you to determine your style of humor and apply it to a speech that centers around a central message.

Overview: Give a 5- to 7-minute speech on your point of view and what makes things funny to you. Your speech should include at least one anecdote or story intended to entertain or bring humor into your presentation.

Speech timings: 5:00, 6:00, 7:00

3-6 Using Descriptive Language

This project addresses the difference between literal and figurative language along with how to determine when to use each to create vivid descriptions.

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to practice writing a speech with an emphasis on adding language to increase interest and impact.

Overview: Overview: You may speak on any topic. Develop a 5- to 7-minute speech describing the topic in detail and present it at your club meeting.

Speech timings: 5:00, 6:00, 7:00

Script

Mother in law…How does THAT make you feel? And if I told you I moved to Berlin to come and live with my mother-in-law, just the two of us? First, though, I must admit she isn’t actually my mother-in-law, I’m a bit young for that. She’s just my girlfriend’s mother. Or should I say my ex-girlfriend’s mother. Getting weird right? Let me explain.

So I moved to Berlin not because I desperately wanted to live with and spend Christmas with my incredible mother-in-law, but because I found a really interesting job here. And my girlfriend was German, so I felt like it was a perfect opportunity to combine both work and hobby.

When I first gave this speech, I was still with my ex, she was living in Leipzig and me with her mother in Berlin, and my exact words were “I am confident in our future with my girlfriend, so I’m already calling her my mother-in-law”. Naive Thomas got dumped a few months later, maybe she didn’t appreciate being called a hobby, I’m not sure. Anyhow, I was devastated, not because I thought I was losing the woman of my dreams, I could get over that just fine. I was devastated because I now had to put up with her mother, who became, from one day to the next, a scary flatmate.

Now, I know what you might be thinking: Thomas, why didn’t you just move out? It’s not like she was chaining you to the bed like in 50 shades of grey. No, that’s true, and all of you have a point. BUt you need to understand, I was straight out of university: living in Berlin Mitte, with cheap rent and freshly brewed Turkish tea, I was living the jet-set life! So I decided to stick around a bit longer.

Living with her is tough. And not for the reasons you might expect. It’s not tough because she’s actually scary, or she blames me for getting dumped, (that would be weird right?) It’s tough because it requires an enormous amount of willpower to not contradict her. In the past I was courting her daughter, so I could find good reasons to be diplomatic, but now with that hobby out of the way, I’m struggling to find a reason to be. You see, my mother-in-law is German-Turkish, and she is proud, VERY proud of being Turkish. If you listened only to her, you’d think that the Ottoman Empire was still ruling the world. She is nostalgic about those times. The highest-quality furniture, the most-renowned tailors and the best carpets all come from Turkey! The Ottomans invented tea, coffee and even cheese! Cheese! She told that to a Swiss!

Last year, the first time I spent Christmas with their family, the most sensationalist claim she came up with was that Santa Claus was a Turk. Forget about St Nicholas, pagan traditions or American marketing, no: his name was Ayaz Ata, Father Frost and he was from Central Asia. He was the father of all Father Christmases! Naturally, I wasn’t convinced by this origin story, but then, I remembered the jet-set life! So I kept my mouth shut.

This illustrates very well my relationship with her, it’s like walking on eggshells. Every interaction is a fine balancing act! Can I ask her where baklava really comes from? Should I, just to be polite, ask her if her daughter is dating somebody else? What should I tell her when I come home late on Tuesday evenings? It takes overthinking to a whole new level.

But it’s definitely not all bad. She is a lovely person, with a kind heart. She’s the one who suggested I move into her spare room and helps me with my German paperwork. She has made my integration in Berlin so much smoother, despite the fact that I became single.

She did take time to warm up to me though. I was the first boyfriend her daughter brought back, so you can imagine, she didn’t really know how to act with me. The first few weeks were quite awkward. But slowly, as I ate Ottoman cheese and agreed to Turk Father Christmas, she loosened up. She used to say I’m the son she’s never had, which I was very touched by. She hasn’t said that for a while though, so maybe she’s found another son she’s never had.

One reason why I am grateful that I was living (and still am) with her is that I was able to get a glimpse of what my future might have looked like, by looking at her relationship with my father-in-law, or however you want to call him. My mother-in-law, and coincidently, her daughter, have, let’s say, dictatorial traits. A bit like a certain modern Turkish politician. As a result, the father gave up a long time ago, he let the wife run the house. He’s one of the smarter ones it seems and he must have agreed to Turk Father Christmas a long time ago. I tried to do the same, with their daughter, but, evidently, it didn’t work.

On the whole, my mother-in-law is still more Ataturk than Erdogan. And she wasn’t that far from the truth with Santa Claus, there are some origin stories that do trace him back to modern day Turkey. So he was actually even Turkish, not just Turk! It wasn’t Central Asia, and it wasn’t exactly Father Frost, she just got some of the details wrong.

In the end we do get along well. And the reason why I do try so hard to please my mother-in-law/scary flatmate is not just because of my jet-set life. It’s also maybe because I cling on to the hope of reclaiming her daughter, so, for the moment, to keep my hobby options open, I will be drinking her freshly brewed Turkish tea, eating Ottoman cheese and worshipping Turk Father Christmas.